Po­lice say a boat with 13 bod­ies on board was dis­cov­ered off the coast of Nevis on Wednes­day.

They said the St Kitts-Nevis De­fence Coast Guard, re­spond­ing to a re­port of a drift­ing boat off the coast, made the grue­some dis­cov­ery just af­ter mid­day, lo­cal time.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Cromwell Hen­ry, said the bod­ies were se­vere­ly de­com­posed and it is not known whether there were chil­dren among the dead.

The boat has been towed back to St Kitts as the in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue and the au­thor­i­ties say crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still at the scene.

Po­lice say it is still too ear­ly to de­ter­mine whether or not there is a con­nec­tion be­tween the boat and bod­ies found here and a sim­i­lar dis­cov­ery off the coast of Trinidad and To­ba­go last week­end.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) said that a pirogue car­ry­ing the de­com­pos­ing re­mains of five uniden­ti­fied in­di­vid­u­als, which was ini­tial­ly seen off the coast of that is­land, sunk while be­ing towed to Trinidad.

While the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ves­sel re­main un­clear, in­clud­ing the cause of death of those on board, the TTCG said the pirogue bore a “strik­ing re­sem­blance” to a boat dis­cov­ered off the coast of To­ba­go in May 2021, which re­port­ed­ly drift­ed from West Africa with mi­grants on board.